3 reasons brain science is terrific and terrifying
Pick up a newspaper any day of the week and you’ll likely see articles breathlessly describing our progress towards unlocking the mysteries of the human brain. If the 1990s were the decad...
Nita Farahany, a futurist and legal ethicist, is the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy and founding director of the Initiative for Science & Society at Duke University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed “The Battle for Your Brain: Defending theRight to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology” (St. Martin’s Press, 2023) and an internationally renowned scholar on the ethics of emerging technologies. Farahany is a frequent media commentator and a keynote speaker at events including TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Economic Forum and judicial conferences worldwide. From 2010 to 2017, she served as a commissioner on the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ethics adviser to the N.I.H. Brain Initiative and to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, member of standing committees for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and serves on the board of advisers for Scientific American and corporate advisory boards. Farahany holds an A.B. in genetics from Dartmouth College, an A.L.M. in biology from Harvard University, and a J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University.